Fiber optic connectors of a wide variety of designs have been employed to terminate optical fiber cables and to facilitate connection of the cables to other cables or other optical fiber transmission devices. A typical fiber optic connector includes a ferrule which mounts and centers an optical fiber or fibers within the connector. The ferrule may be fabricated of such material as ceramic. A ferrule holder or other housing component of the connector embraces the ferrule and may be fabricated of such material as molded plastic. A spring may be disposed within the housing or ferrule holder such that the ferrule is yieldably biased forwardly for engaging another fiber-mounting ferrule of a mating connecting device.
A pair of fiber optic connectors or a connector and another optical fiber transmission device often are mated in an adapter which centers the fibers to provide low insertion losses. The adapter couples the connectors together so that their encapsulated fibers connect end-to-end. The adapter may be an in-line component, or the adapter can be designed for mounting in an aperture in a panel, backplane, circuit board or the like. The adapter may be mounted on a printed circuit board such as a motherboard, and one of the connectors received by the adapter may be mounted to a daughterboard.
When the adapter and connector assemblies are mounted through an aperture in a panel, it often is desirable to mount the connector assembly so that it has some degree of limited movement or "float" relative to the panel or other chassis. For instance, the chassis or panel and its mounted connector may be assembled in relation to another frame component or a printed circuit board, backplane or the like. By providing some degree of floating movement for the connector, accommodation is made for manufacturing tolerances when the entire system is assembled.
On the other hand, if a connector is mounted in a panel with floating movement relative thereto, it often is difficult to mate a complementary connector with the panel-mounted connector because the panel-mounted connector shifts around due to its floating movement. The present invention is directed to a new and improved latch-release system wherein an adapter and a panel-mounted connector is fixed against any floating movement relative to the panel to allow easy mating of a second connector, and the panel-mounted connector is released upon mating to allow limited floating movement of the connector assembly relative to the panel. Of course, the concepts of the invention are not limited to this particular adapter/connector arrangement.